Someone Else's Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson

Women's Fiction

Shandi and her little boy Natty are moving to Atlanta, after her father offers up his condo so she can be closer to college. Her best friend Walcott is helping with the move and the three stop at a Circle K on the way. Shandi and Natty go inside to get some drinks where a cute man looks lost looking at laundry detergent. Coming up with a thousand ways to approach him, she doesn't really notice another man enter the shop with a gun. He charges the cash register and robs the store but before leaving, a police officer enters the store and the robber shoots her. Realizing he can't leave, the robber takes everyone in to the back and both Shandi and the cute man, William, relive past events in the fear of not having any future ones.

Shandi gave birth to Natty a virgin. She has chosen to forget the day Natty was conceived but in the back of the Circle K, she starts to remember being drugged that night. William lost both his wife and kid in a car crash exactly a year ago. He forbid anyone from mentioning his wife's name infront of him shortly thereafter but starts to relive courting her during high school and remembering how much love they had for each other.

Having read quite a few of Jackson's books in the past I was looking forward to this one. She does a fantastic job of writing imperfect southern women. Shandi isn't the best character Jackson has written but she is typical to Jackson's writing. She's southern, she makes the reader like her, and she has many flaws that she acknowledges and tries to sort out. I think this is part of the reason why I like Jackson's books so much. The characters know they aren't perfect and they usually try to sort things out.

Also typical to Jackson books, this one was very easy to get in to. I started reading and felt like I couldn't stop. I needed to find out what these characters were hiding from themselves and how they were going to get past their issues.

Despite all this, by the time I completed the book and put it down, I felt a little bit let down. There were two reasons for this. The first was that the ending was crammed with revelations. In about 20 pages, there were two plot twists which made me feel like there wasn't enough time to digest what was happening and get resolution out of it. The second was the story of rape that seemed to get played down as not being a big deal. It's not surprising that the rapist himself tried not to make a big deal out of the rape, but when other characters started going along with it, it bothered me. Rape is rape, regardless of the back story that goes along with it.

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for letting me be a part of this book tour.
Buy the book here.

First Line: "I fell in love with William Ashe at gunpoint, in a Circle K."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson

Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson
Literature/Fiction

Between, Georgia is a very small town with a large amount of drama. Nonny Frett biologically is a member of the Crabtree family but was adopted by the Frett family, their bitter enemies. Nonny's mother is a blind, deaf, and extremely talented at making dolls. One of her aunts is a recluse and the other is overbearing.

When one of the Crabtree's dogs attacks her aunt, the feud between the two families starts to bubble over. Nonny tries to be the mediator but she has her hands full trying to get a divorce and understand why her aunt is taking out anger towards her daughter on her niece.

Jackson has a gift for making books page turners and crafting characters that you can connect to, whether you like them or hate them. I found myself flipping ahead in this book to figure out what was going to happen, which is something I rarely do. After this book, Joshilyn Jackson has replaced Jodi Picoult as my favourite family drama writer.

First Line: "The war began thirty years, nine months, and seven days ago, when I was deaf and blind, floating silent and serene inside Hazel Crabtree."

Rating:
(4.5/5)

Between, Georgia

Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson
Fiction/ Literature

This is a Hatfield/McCoy feud story. Nonny has been raised by the Fretts but her biological family is the Crabtrees. Nonny's adoptive mother, Stacie is deaf and talented at making dolls heads, her twin sister is extremely reclusive and the older sister of the bunch, Bernese is just plain crazy.

The Crabtrees are as redneck as you come even to owning the rapid and dangerous dogs.

Nonny is the go-between for these two families. She is also somewhat separated from her husband. Henry Crabtree, a decent man is interested in Nonny but sort of gets lost in the shuffle

This book is excellent and Jackson can portray all these various types of women very well but where I feel the story is weak is in the male voices of the story. Henry, Noony's husband and especially Bernese's husband seem to be wimpish and hardly there

First Line: "The war began thirty years, nine months and sevendays ago, when I was deaf and blind, floating silent and serene inside Hazel Crabtree."

Rating:
(4.0/5)

the girl who stopped swimming

the girl who stopped swimming by Joshilyn Jackson
Literature

Laurel can see ghosts. When the ghost of her teenage daughter's best friend wakes her up, Laurel's perfect little world is turned topsy turvy. Laurel does not know how to protect her daughter(Shelby) from the police investigation or even how to find out what Shelby might be hiding.

Her computer geek husband calls in re-enforcements in the form of her insipid parents. Laurel feels she needs her abrasive sister Thalia to find out some answers. Laurel is a wishy-washy character. Thalia is the complete opposite.

The answers Laurel gets are about a lot of family skeletons; the death of her uncle, her mom's growing up in a slum and her husband's true feelings about their marriage.

Although this book is not well written the story line did grab me and carry me along. I wished that Laurel would finally grow a backbone. I loved all the little twists and turns the story took. I have not read Jackson's other books so can not compare this one.

First Line: "Until the drowned girl came to Laurel's bedroom, ghosts had never walked in Victorianna"

Rating:

(3.5/5)

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson
Literature/Fiction

Laurel Gray grew up in a poor neighbourhood with her parents and older sister Thalia. The Gray parents take the kids out of the neighbourhood but there are still family secrets and connections to the town, including what happened when Laurel's uncle was shot in a hunting accident. Laurel becomes pregnant during college after a single night with David and they get married, though there seem to be some lingering questions in Thalia's mind as to whether they belong together or not.

Laurel is woken in the middle of the night by a ghost beckoning her to her backyard. What she finds is her daughter (Shelby)'s best friend floating dead in the pool while a cousin from the poor neighbourhood is staying over. As questions are asked of Shelby and her cousin Bet, Laurel starts to question her past and the ghosts that haunt her. She struggles to keep her life together, keep her past from interrupting the present, and keep her husband and sister from killing each other.

Like Jackson's other novel I've read, Gods in Alabama, the plot sucks you in right away and you keep turning the pages until you're done. While I didn't find Gods in Alabama like this, I did find The Girl Who Stopped Swimming to be like a Jodi Picoult book where it's a family crisis and the characters and their personal problems are the premise of the book.

It's not the most believable book in the world, and I found some of the twists to be predictable, but that didn't take away from the entertainment value of the book, which was high! A great book!

First Line: "Until the drowned girl came to Laurel's bedroom, ghosts had never walked in Victorianna."

Rating:

(4.5/5)